When Krakauer finished climbing Devils Thumb, a storm hit, forcing him to stay in his tent. He caught a portion of his tent on fire and felt guillty because it was his father's tent. His father wanted Krakauer to become a doctor ever since he was young. However Krakauer didn't like that and argued with his father. The gap between them widened when Jon never entered medical school but became a carpenter. After two decades, Krakauer realized his anger had been jong and he acted like a brat. His father had post-polio syndrome and medicated himself and his behavior became more and more irrational. His mother had to move out and Lewis Krakauer was placed in a psychiatric hospital after a suicide attempt in front of Jon.
Krakauer left his base camp after he had to dig his way out of his tent 5 times. As night fell, he saw lights of Petersburg an dwas overcome by loneliness. While the weather was fiar, he quickly traveled back to Devils Thumb another way until he finally reached the top. A week after his journey to Devils Thumb, he met Jim Freeman and slept in his step van. He realized most people didn't even care that he climbed the mountain.
Chapter 18
Chris was surviving fine in the month of July. The game was plentiful and he was consuming berries, mushrooms and wild potatoes. However, he was still eating less calories than he burned, which made him very lean. He made a mistake that costed his life in late July. He read Doctor Zhivago, which was the last book he would ever read. When he finished the book on July 30th, there was an entry in his journal that said he was extremely weak, and it was the cause of seeds.
Potato seeds are midly toxic after they've begun to sprout. It contains solanine, a poison that occurs in plants which causes vomiting, diarrhea, headacches and lethargu. Some think that Chris had consumed H. mackenzii, the wild sweet pea, but Krakauer doesn't understand why Chris would suddenly confuse the H. mackenzii with the H. aplinum when he had sfely eaten donzens of wild potato roots.
The effects of consuming swainsonine creates a capor lock. The body is prevented from turning what it eats into a source of usable energy. If one ingested too much swainsonine, one is bound to starve, no matter how much food one eats. Animals sometimes recover from swainsonine poisoning, because the animal might have a large store of proteins and sugars. But in Chris' case, he was lean to begin with, so there was no way for his body to flush the toxin from his system.
In Chris' entry, he achieved 100 days in the wild on August 5th, but mentions that he was in the weak condition. He had no game and literally becamed trapped in the wild.
If Chris had known about the safety cabin two miles away, he might have survived. However he did not carry any kind of map so he starved to death.
Before Chris died, he wrote 'I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MY GOD BLESS ALL!'. Finally, he took a picture of himself standing near the bus holding his final goodbye.
Epilogue
Krakauer and the McCandless visited the bus in Alaska with a helicopter. Billie admits that it was a pretty area where Chris stayed and she discovers a silverware she had in the Annandale house. Billie and Walt find a Bible that belonged to Chris when he was younger. Finally, they head back leaving a small first-aid kit, canned food and other survival supplies for anyone else who might become lost and find the bus.
When Krakauer finished climbing Devils Thumb, a storm hit, forcing him to stay in his tent. He caught a portion of his tent on fire and felt guillty because it was his father's tent. His father wanted Krakauer to become a doctor ever since he was young. However Krakauer didn't like that and argued with his father. The gap between them widened when Jon never entered medical school but became a carpenter. After two decades, Krakauer realized his anger had been jong and he acted like a brat. His father had post-polio syndrome and medicated himself and his behavior became more and more irrational. His mother had to move out and Lewis Krakauer was placed in a psychiatric hospital after a suicide attempt in front of Jon.
Krakauer left his base camp after he had to dig his way out of his tent 5 times. As night fell, he saw lights of Petersburg an dwas overcome by loneliness. While the weather was fiar, he quickly traveled back to Devils Thumb another way until he finally reached the top. A week after his journey to Devils Thumb, he met Jim Freeman and slept in his step van. He realized most people didn't even care that he climbed the mountain.
Chapter 18
Chris was surviving fine in the month of July. The game was plentiful and he was consuming berries, mushrooms and wild potatoes. However, he was still eating less calories than he burned, which made him very lean. He made a mistake that costed his life in late July. He read Doctor Zhivago, which was the last book he would ever read. When he finished the book on July 30th, there was an entry in his journal that said he was extremely weak, and it was the cause of seeds.
Potato seeds are midly toxic after they've begun to sprout. It contains solanine, a poison that occurs in plants which causes vomiting, diarrhea, headacches and lethargu. Some think that Chris had consumed H. mackenzii, the wild sweet pea, but Krakauer doesn't understand why Chris would suddenly confuse the H. mackenzii with the H. aplinum when he had sfely eaten donzens of wild potato roots.
The effects of consuming swainsonine creates a capor lock. The body is prevented from turning what it eats into a source of usable energy. If one ingested too much swainsonine, one is bound to starve, no matter how much food one eats. Animals sometimes recover from swainsonine poisoning, because the animal might have a large store of proteins and sugars. But in Chris' case, he was lean to begin with, so there was no way for his body to flush the toxin from his system.
In Chris' entry, he achieved 100 days in the wild on August 5th, but mentions that he was in the weak condition. He had no game and literally becamed trapped in the wild.
If Chris had known about the safety cabin two miles away, he might have survived. However he did not carry any kind of map so he starved to death.
Before Chris died, he wrote 'I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD. GOODBYE AND MY GOD BLESS ALL!'. Finally, he took a picture of himself standing near the bus holding his final goodbye.
Epilogue
Krakauer and the McCandless visited the bus in Alaska with a helicopter. Billie admits that it was a pretty area where Chris stayed and she discovers a silverware she had in the Annandale house. Billie and Walt find a Bible that belonged to Chris when he was younger. Finally, they head back leaving a small first-aid kit, canned food and other survival supplies for anyone else who might become lost and find the bus.